An English translation of Yoani Sánchez's blog Generación Y, from Havana, Cuba

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Teacher’s Day

Last night a neighbor knocked on the door; it was around ten. Her grandson had to take a present to his teacher and the lady needed colored paper to wrap it in. Somewhere we had a sheet with lilac flowers on it, enough to wrap a couple of soaps and a lipstick. Today the boy emerged smug, with the present in hand, heading to a school where music blares from loudspeakers starting early in the morning. Teacher’s Day has been, since forever, a big party in all Cuban schools, a time for the students to honor their teaching professionals. However, these aren’t times for too much celebration, nor to hide the current situation of this important sector behind commemorations.

The “high quality of Cuban education,” held up by so many in the world, is a mirage that didn’t manage to make it much beyond the eighties. Maintained by the Kremlin, this Island was able to exhibit an educational infrastructure that had nothing to do with the real economic and productive opportunities. As if a sickly toothless man possessed an arm worthy of a powerful bodybuilder. This disproportion – between what we enjoyed and what was really allowed to us – was painfully evident when the Soviet subsidy ended and the country’s schools entered a profound crisis from which they still haven’t recovered. A crisis that includes not only the physical deterioration of the sites and the classrooms, but also the loss of quality instruction and the ethical and moral devaluation of education.

At the center of the problem: the teacher, who has gone from being a respected professional to the lowest rungs of the working ladder. The “emerging teacher” experiment – rapid training of teenagers to take over classrooms – worsened the situation and today it’s common to find someone teaching Spanish who doesn’t know the difference between the words “literal” and “literary.” The excess of ideology, the Manicheistic approach to the teaching of our own national history – everything is black or white – the crushing of creativity and critical thinking, are among the many negative characteristics evident in Cuban education today. However, despite all this, there are still teachers who excel in their cloisters and perform their work with dedication and excellence. Educators for whom the low salaries, the material collapse, the mediocrity around them and the intrusion of politics in their work have not killed their desire to teach. To them, congratulations on this day.

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32 thoughts on “Teacher’s Day”

According to the liars, domestic traitors and wannabe terrorists, whose only desire in life is to be Castros after Castros, there’s

NOTHING

nice or positive in Cuba.

COudl that even remotely be true?

Of course not.

There are many, many good and hard-working people in Cuba. But the team “yoani”, the mercenaries and peddlers of lies only focus on what little is negative trying to create a dark and sombre picture of a country that is anything but sombre!!!

Here is one of many thousands of similar stories about Cuban teachers. Not even remotely similar to the dark and heinously deceptive picture the hyenas “yoani” are trying to create for those who have never been to Cuba:

According to the liars, domestic traitors and wannabe terrorists, whose only desire in life is to be Castros after Castros, there’s

NOTHING

nice or positive in Cuba.

COudl that even remotely be true?

Of course not.

There are many, many good and hard-working people in Cuba. But the team “yoani”, the mercenaries and peddlers of lies only focus on what little is negative trying to create a dark and sombre picture of a country that is anything but sombre!!!

Here is one of many thousands of similar stories about Cuban teachers. Not even remotely similar to the dark and heinously deceptive picture the hyenas “yoani” are trying to create for those who have never been to Cuba:

And what are the team “yoani” doing? The “champions” of “freedom” and democracy?

Licking the brownies from their white “gods” butts!!!!!!

For a fistful of dollars.

You have become WORSE, not better. Do not delude yourselves. You are nothing but a bunch of criminals, domestic traitors and terrorists who want to be Castros after Castros. You are so deplorable, even Cuban emigrants, with a few and far inbetween exceptions, hate you.

Cuba is cutting back its hallowed free education system and moving students into more practical careers to reduce costs and fill needs in its work force, recently released government statistics show.

Enrollment in the communist-run country’s many and varied types of schools fell from 3 million students in 2008 to 2.2 million last year, a drop of 27 percent, according to the National Statistics Office.

The reductions include cuts in some of the most vaunted programs of the Cuban revolution, which from its beginning in 1959 emphasized the importance of education for all and incorporated ideas from Jose Marti, the intellectual father of the country.

Soon after succeeding his brother Fidel Castro in 2008, President Raul Castro warned of coming budget cuts in education and health care because he said the debt-laden country was virtually bankrupt.

“What we need to root out definitively is the irresponsible attitude of consuming, with nobody – or very few people – worrying about how much it costs the country to guarantee that and, above all, if it can really do so,” Castro told the National Assembly in August 2008.

“Social expenditures should be in accordance with real possibilities, and that means cutting those expenditures it is possible to do without,” he said.

Among the hardest hit were universities, where the number of students dropped almost 50 percent from 300,000 in 2008 to 156,000 in 2011 as admission standards were raised and liberal arts careers slashed.

Adult education, often criticized as too informal, open to cheating and a substitute for working, also fell dramatically.

Only 145,000 students were enrolled last year in university extension classes, a fraction of the 578,000 signed up in 2008 for mainly liberal arts courses.

Enrollment in adult education courses, designed to improve work skills, dropped from 373,000 in 2008 to 129,000 as the long-standing practice of paying state workers and farmers their full salaries to study during the day came to an end.

It must be tough for the teachers and the students. Is the internet useful, at least in creating content? Nothing substitutes a good teacher, but under the circumstances its an option.

The other thing is to hold classes on some subjects after normal working hours. This enables adults, who have an interest and are qualified, to teach the young without disrupting their work commitments. Flexing times and locations could bring in homemakers and the elderly / retired into contributing as teachers.

The formal classroom and school no longer become a constraint.

I’m sure many of these have been tried, but thought I should mention it anyway. Wish the children the best. Whatever the circumstances, there’s often a way out!

I am a very uninteresting individual!!!!!But the one thing I am is honest and respectful of others……Therefore I chalange your statement that I referred to the people of Cuba as being ignorant, this is from your weak mind. If you stand by the statement I demand an apology for our brothers and sisters in Cuba

Simba Sez: I am so proud of Damir. He has finally figured out that Santa is a myth for children and not a real character. I wonder what great mystical phenomenon he will solve next? He must be on his way to great fame and fortune.

Not my habit to discuss with the weekend posters, but when the pioneers of the team
yoani’s” support brigade, all 1 and a half of them, come up withsuch nonsense, it is worth highlighting it, post 19:

“Even to the liars, frauds and other grinches who stole Cuba’s liberty! I hope you spend this XMAS singing carols and spreading goodwill instead of throwing rocks!

Try it, you might like it.”

After months of spreading lies and throwing rocks themselves, they come out talking “sweet” and throwing “roses”. Taking a high moral stand, as if they have got any right to it, being the liars and rocks-throwers for attacking a foreign country they have got

NOTHIG

to do with!!!!

Hypocrites

ALWAYS

remain just that.

Oh, by the way: “god” doesn’t exist, and xmass is a capitalist propagandistic brainwash to make people spend the money and fill the pockets of teh rich and greedy paranoid cre**s.

The funniest bit is the fact that even religious zealots will admit that santa clown doesn’t exist!!!!! A character from their own religion, and they agree: he doesn’t exist!!!

Damir said: “You have never been arrested and jailed for your activities, despite a few brushes with police, which you yourself have caused anyway, by choosing to confront police, who then legally and completely justifiably arrested you, only to let you go after a day or so.”

Damir, THE POLICE IN CUBA CAN ARREST ANYONE AT THE CASTROFASCIST’S WHIM DEAR!

Amnesty International on Wednesday called on the Cuban authorities to revoke laws that restrict freedom of expression, assembly and association and to release all dissidents unfairly detained by the authorities. The organization also urged President Raúl Castro to allow independent monitoring of the human rights situation in Cuba by inviting UN experts to visit the country and by facilitating monitoring by other human rights groups.
“Cuban laws impose unacceptable limits on the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly,” said Kerrie Howard, Americas Deputy Director at Amnesty International. “Cuba desperately needs political and legal reform to bring the country in line with basic international human rights standards.

“The long imprisonment of individuals solely for the peaceful exercise of their rights is not only a tragedy in itself but also constitutes a stumbling block to other reforms, including the beginning of the dialogue needed for the lifting of the US unilateral embargo against Cuba.”

Several articles of the Cuban Constitution and Criminal Code are so vague that they are currently being interpreted in a way that infringes fundamental freedoms.

Article 91 of Cuba’s Criminal Code provides for sentences of ten to 20 years or death for anyone “who in the interest of a foreign state, commits an act with the objective of damaging the independence or territorial integrity of the Cuban state”.

According to article 72 “any person shall be deemed dangerous if he or she has shown a proclivity to commit crimes demonstrated by conduct that is in manifest contradiction with the norms of socialist morality” and article 75.1 states that any police officer can issue a warning for such “dangerousness”. The declaration of a dangerous pre-criminal state can be decided summarily. A warning may also be issued for associating with a “dangerous person”.

Law 88 provides for seven to 15 years’ imprisonment for passing information to the United States that could be used to bolster anti-Cuban measures, such as the US economic blockade. The legislation also bans the ownership, distribution or reproduction of “subversive materials” from the US government, and proposes terms of imprisonment of up to five years for collaborating with radio, TV stations or publications deemed to be assisting US policy.

Local non-governmental organizations have great difficulty in reporting on human rights violations due to restrictions on their rights to freedom of expression, association and movement. International independent human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, are not allowed to visit the island.

If the silence (and stupid responses from “friendly translator” hiding under the “Anonimo” nick unsuccessfully, are the only response to my questions, I’ll repeat them until the team “yoni” respond with the answers to my questions

I have asked many a question about many aspects of this team “yoani” that even to a superficially informed person they appear impossible. So far the feedback is zero.

The team “yoani” do not like to answer the questions that destroy their painstakingly built “profile”, whose foundations are pure bullshift.

Here’s one of my questions that the team “yoani” are keen to ignore:

why are all your “biographies” only saying that you have been 2 years in Switzerland and are now omitting to say that you have actually traveled to

GERMANY FIRST and as a STUDENT

And that after Switzerland you went to Spain, and when even then you could not find any employment other than baby-sitting, YOU CAME BACK TO CUBA in order to survive.

For there was no life and future for you in “some kind of pragmatic capitalism”

From this question MORE inevitably follow. See, there are multiple problems you cannot surpass on your own here.

Just to be able to

TRAVEL

abroad you needed a

LETTER OF INVITATION FROM GERMANY.

How did you get that letter?

And then the small question of passport. How did you get the passport? And how did you get the $500 CUCs to pay for it?

And what I really do not understand, is

H O W

did you re-enter the Cuba, being such a dissident and the “enemy” of the state?

See, Cuba does not accept the dissidents back in.

Were you really a student in Germany? If not, how did you get there? As a dissident who had received an invitation letter from Germany? And who wrote that letter?

And how did you get to know them?

And how did you get the permit to re-enter Cuba, if you were indeed a dissident? The official policy of Cuba is that if you leave as a self-declared “dissident”, yo do not need to return hence you are banned from Cuba for life.

Yet, there you are. In Cuba, spewing vomit and garbage daily. Unhindered and undisturbed. You have never been arrested and jailed for your activities, despite a few brushes with police, which you yourself have caused anyway, by choosing to confront police, who then legally and completely justifiably arrested you, only to let you go after a day or so.

Ok, let us see. I have asked many a question about many aspects of this team “yoani” that even to a superficially informed person they appear impossible. So far the feedback is zero.

The team “yoani” do not like to answer the questions that destroy their painstakingly built “profile”, whose foundations are pure bullshift.

Here’s one of my questions that the team “yoani” are keen to ignore:

why are all your “biographies” only saying that you have been 2 years in Switzerland and are now omitting to say that you have actually traveled to

GERMANY FIRST and as a STUDENT

And that after Switzerland you went to Spain, and when even then you could not find any employment other than baby-sitting, YOU CAME BACK TO CUBA in order to survive.

For there was no life and future for you in “some kind of pragmatic capitalism”

From this question MORE inevitably follow. See, there are multiple problems you cannot surpass on your own here.

Just to be able to

TRAVEL

abroad you needed a

LETTER OF INVITATION FROM GERMANY.

How did you get that letter?

And then the small question of passport. How did you get the passport? And how did you get the $500 CUCs to pay for it?

And what I really do not understand, is

H O W

did you re-enter the Cuba, being such a dissident and the “enemy” of the state?

See, Cuba does not accept the dissidents back in.

Were you really a student in Germany? If not, how did you get there? As a dissident who had received an invitation letter from Germany? And who wrote that letter?

And how did you get to know them?

And how did you get the permit to re-enter Cuba, if you were indeed a dissident? The official policy of Cuba is that if you leave as a self-declared “dissident”, yo do not need to return hence you are banned from Cuba for life.

Yet, there you are. In Cuba, spewing vomit and garbage daily. Unhindered and undisturbed. You have never been arrested and jailed for your activities, despite a few brushes with police, which you yourself have caused anyway, by choosing to confront police, who then legally and completely justifiably arrested you, only to let you go after a day or so.

YOUTUBE: Pakistani medical students protesters came face-to-face with a wall of riot police who had spread out over the campus in Cuba. They were demanding more university hospital facilities from the Cuban government, and an education sufficient to pass their exams to become licensed physicians when they return home to Pakistan.

UNIVERSITY WORLD NEWS: Costa Rica rejects high number of medical graduates from Cuba – Chrissie Long

Graduates of Cuba’s Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina, or ELAM, are “gravely deficient” in their preparation to practise medicine, the head of Costa Rica’s most celebrated medical school told journalists last month.

Of the 138 graduates who failed the medical licensing exams in Costa Rica, 59 were graduates of ELAM, said Ricardo Boza Cordero, director of the medical programme at the University of Costa Rica.

According to Boza, the students were largely behind in fundamental areas including paediatrics and gynaecology-obstetrics, and failed to achieve passing scores in the 11 exams administered.

“Taking into account that some who will practise as doctors in Costa Rica come from foreign universities, we have to make sure they understand the particulars of our national medicine,” he told news sources.

“We made the decision to institute a general exam that evaluates their knowledge of basic subject matters in the curriculum and clinical experience.”

The fact that 43% of those who failed the licensing exam studied in Cuba comes as a surprise to those familiar with the health system there. Doctors from Cuba, a country that has long been known as an epicentre of medicine in Latin America, have been sent all over the world to aid in health missions in disaster zones.

The country boasts one of the highest life expectancies in the hemisphere and excellent healthcare coverage rates, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sought medical care on the Caribbean island when he was diagnosed with cancer in June 2011.

Many people still believe that Cuban health care is among the most efficient in the world, as it is often advertised by the regime.

The same doctors who support the supposed renowned health care system on the Caribbean island, however, are struggling to re-validate their diploma to practice legally in Brazil.

At the most recent re-validation test – which includes proficiency in Portuguese, their medical knowledge and clinical practices – none of the doctors who graduated from Cuba were approved. From 2005 to the present day – the most recent exam administered earlier this year – more than 300 Cuban doctors have applied, but only 25 doctors were authorized officially to work in Brazil, according to the Ministry of Education.

Their results, in fact, are among the worst of the average of 600 professionals – ranging in homelands from Argentina, Bolivia, the United States and European counties – who go through the process.

The Brazilian Medical Association attributes the apparent failure of so many doctors in the test to the lack of quality of universities in countries like Cuba and Bolivia. According to the association, the teaching of medicine in these places are at the level of a nursing major in Brazil.

Ok, let us see. I have asked many a question about many aspects of this team “yoani” that even to a superficially informed person they appear impossible. So far the feedback is zero.

The team “yoani” do not like to answer the questions that destroy their painstakingly built “profile”, whose foundations are pure bullshift.

Here’s one of my questions that the team “yoani” are keen to ignore:

why are all your “biographies” only saying that you have been 2 years in Switzerland and are now omitting to say that you have actually traveled to

GERMANY FIRST and as a STUDENT

And that after Switzerland you went to Spain, and when even then you could not find any employment other than baby-sitting, YOU CAME BACK TO CUBA in order to survive.

For there was no life and future for you in “some kind of pragmatic capitalism”

From this question MORE inevitably follow. See, there are multiple problems you cannot surpass on your own here.

Just to be able to

TRAVEL

abroad you needed a

LETTER OF INVITATION FROM GERMANY.

How did you get that letter?

And then the small question of passport. How did you get the passport? And how did you get the $500 CUCs to pay for it?

And what I really do not understand, is

H O W

did you re-enter the Cuba, being such a dissident and the “enemy” of the state?

See, Cuba does not accept the dissidents back in.

Were you really a student in Germany? If not, how did you get there? As a dissident who had received an invitation letter from Germany? And who wrote that letter?

And how did you get to know them?

And how did you get the permit to re-enter Cuba, if you were indeed a dissident? The official policy of Cuba is that if you leave as a self-declared “dissident”, yo do not need to return hence you are banned from Cuba for life.

Yet, there you are. In Cuba, spewing vomit and garbage daily. Unhindered and undisturbed. You have never been arrested and jailed for your activities, despite a few brushes with police, which you yourself have caused anyway, by choosing to confront police, who then legally and completely justifiably arrested you, only to let you go after a day or so.

The team “yoani”, despite all the warnings and critique, continue with their delusional hypocrisy:

“The excess of ideology, the Manicheistic approach to the teaching of our own national history – everything is black or white – the crushing of creativity and critical thinking, are among the many negative characteristics evident in Cuban education today.”

The latest OUN report on education and the latest result of the international test among the students of developed countries paint a picture that is actually much darker than this supposed “state” of Cuban education as grossly misrepresented by the team “yoani”.

From the latest report by the OUN, that just came out, the only good students came from Asia, led by South Korea and Taiwan. So-called “free” and “democratic” countries of Europe and the nazist gulag usa are rated catastrophically and occupy the bottom of the list.

Now, how is that possible?

There are no Castros there to manage the education, yet these “rich and powerful” countries in full process of economic and political disintegration are actually

BEHIND CUBA

in terms of education.

The team “yoani”, and their cia appartchiks who write all this bullshift for them should get out a little more and connect with reality. Reading their own huffington post can help. The usa nazist gulag was ranked 17th among the “friendly” countries published on the list of the “best” countries for studying. And that is when they include and manipulate the numbers to create meaningless “statistical averages”, which only serve to delude and obscure the facts.

The facts are that un the nazist gulag usa only the selected few rich children have the opportunity to gain relatively useful education. The rest, especially the poor, are actually falling behind ad alarmingly fast.

In the best capitalist – read nazist – tradition, the data is heavilly misinterpreted to take the cream from the top winner – China. See for yourself the list from the “respected” PISA:

and compare it with the interpretations in your local propaganda outlet (washington or huffinton post, cnn, bbc, whatever).

Chinese children are the best. Communist education, oh by the way… The close second are South Korean children, for all the wrong reasons (14-16 hours of studying a day, parents’ and social pressures to “excell”, etc.).

The “prestigoius and respected” PISA (for the mo***ns here, who need everything explained PISA stands for Programme for International Student Assessment), which is actually NOT all that prestigious as it is an OECD instrument and it only lists its’ “members”, not the whole world as OUN does, then compares the quality of education and when we compare the results with the list of the best countries, a further disparity surfaces.

China is nowhere to be seen on the list, yet it has the highest scores. Finland on the other hand has the best quality education, but its’ students seem not to be capable of taking the advantage of it…

Mediocre, average, falling. The marks for the usanian nazist “education”:

MIAMI HERALD: John Kerry’s nomination as secretary of state raises hopes, fears over Cuba policy – Sen. John Kerry has questioned U.S. pro-democracy spending in Cuba, and endorsed the embargo but favors liberal travel to the island. – BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

Both hopes for and fears of significant changes in Cuba policies during President Barack Obama’s second term heightened Friday with the nomination of Sen. John Kerry as the next U.S. Secretary of State.

The Massachusetts Democrat in the past has endorsed the embargo but proposed allowing all travel to the island, including tourist trips, and criticized both Radio/TV Marti and the U.S. government’s pro-democracy programs in Cuba.

His nomination to succeed Hillary Clinton is expected to sail through Senate confirmation because Kerry has served in the Senate since 1984 and chairs the powerful Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Kerry’s long-telegraphed move to the State Department won applause from backers of the Obama administration’s policy of expanding ties and assistance to the Cuban people while waiting for the government to move toward democracy and human rights.

During his first term Obama lifted almost all limits on Cuban-American travel and remittances to the island and reopened educational “people-to-people” visits by all U.S. residents, although tourism remains banned. Further openings were stalled by Cuba’s detention of Alan Gross, a Maryland man serving a15-year sentence in Havana on charges Washington views as spurious.

But Kerry’s impending move to the State Department also sparked fears among some Cuban-Americans that he will be too willing to seek accommodations with Havana and other repressive governments around the world.